Red Tape, Organizational Performance, and Employee Outcomes: Meta‐analysis, Meta‐regression, and Research Agenda

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Bert George,Sanjay K. Pandey,Bram Steijn,Adelien Decramer,Mieke Audenaert
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13327

Research Article

638Public Administration Review • July | August 2021

Bert George

Sanjay K. Pandey

Bram Steijn

Adelien Decramer

Mieke Audenaert

Abstract: Although there is consensus among scholars that red tape has negative consequences, there is a lack of

synthesis on these negative effects. We conduct a meta-analysis and meta-regression of public administration evidence

and ask: What is the impact of red tape on organizational performance and employee outcomes, and which conditions

moderate this impact? Our meta-analysis finds that red tape has a significant, negative, and small-to-medium impact

on both organizational performance and employee outcomes. Meta-regression shows that red tape imposed by the

organization itself is more harmful than red tape imposed by external parties. Moreover, red tape’s negative impact

remains quite stable across sectors, administrative traditions, and research methods. In conclusion, an agenda for

future public administration research on red tape is presented. We recommend that future research syntheses on red tape

include research on concepts that bear a family resemblance (e.g., sludge, administrative burden) and also encourage

analyses of differing discourses to identify common themes.

Evidence for practice

• This research synthesis suggests that investing effort in reducing red tape is worthwhile because—on

average—red tape has a significant, negative, and small-to-medium impact on both organizational

performance and employee outcomes.

• Red tape’s negative impact is quite stable across sectors and administrative traditions, indicating that its

impact is similar across contexts, thus making red tape a universal issue as opposed to only a context-specific

problem.

• Red tape’s negative impact is, however, significantly smaller when red tape is imposed by external parties as

opposed to the own organization.

• These findings are important because red tape imposed by one’s own organization is—to some extent—

within a public manager’s control. This form of red tape is not externally imposed but results from the

organization’s internal rules, regulations, and procedures, and can thus be actively managed, although

reducing it might be challenging.

Until the 1980s, the Weberian bureaucracy—

sometimes also labeled traditional public

administration—was the dominant model

of how public organizations should be managed

and organized (Hughes2012). At the heart of the

Weberian bureaucracy lies the idea that all citizens and

civil servants should be treated equally, which thus

implies standardized procedures, rules, and regulations

as focal points (Kaufman1977; Osborne2006). This

traditional way of managing and organizing public

organizations came under attack during the New

Public Management (NPM) movement of the 1980s

(Hood1991). Indeed, NPM evangelists considered

the Weberian bureaucracy a failed model because

government became too big and unsustainable,

and the preponderance of rules, regulations, and

procedures created an overly bureaucratic public

sector (Hughes2012).

The NPM movement, christened reinventing

government in America, issued a report in 1993 titled,

“From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government

that Works Better and Costs Less”. The term “red

tape” was used worldwide by practitioners who

sought to reduce red tape through reforms such as

implementing private-sector management practices in

government and privatizing the provision of specific

public goods and services (Diefenbach2009; Osborne

and Gaebler1992). As policymakers focused on NPM

reforms and targeted red tape in the 1990s, public

administration scholars also started engaging head-on

with the concept of red tape. Pandey, Pandey, and

Van Ryzin(2017, 220) offer a clear portrayal of the

academic engagement, “… the dominant academic

view in public management scholarship regarding

bureaucratic red tape as an epiphenomenon and a

second-order event began to come apart in the 1990s.”

Red Tape, Organizational Performance, and Employee

Outcomes: Meta-analysis, Meta-regression, and Research

Agenda

Erasmus University Rotterdam

George Washington University

Ghent University

Ghent University

Mieke Audenaert is a professor of People

Management, involving the interrelation

of HRM and leadership, at Ghent

University in Belgium. Her main research

areas are the employment relationship,

people management, and performance

management. She studies these topics in

the specific context of the public sector.

Email: mieke.audenaert@ugent.be

Adelien Decramer is a professor in HRM

and Organizational Behavior at the Faculty

of Economics and Business Administration

and head of the research group HRM and

Organizational Behavior at Ghent University.

Her main research areas are performance

management and people management.

Email: adelien.decramer@ugent.be

Bram Steijn is a professor of HRM in the

public sector at the department of Public

Administration and Sociology, Erasmus

University Rotterdam. His main research

areas are people management, leadership

and motivation, and teamworking.

Email: steijn@essb.eur.nl

Sanjay K. Pandey is a Shapiro professor

of Public Policy and Public Administration

at the Trachtenberg School, The George

Washington University. He is a recipient of

the NASPAA/ASPA Distinguished Research

Award and an elected fellow of the

National Academy of Public Administration.

Email: skpandey@gwu.edu;

sanjay.k.pandey@gmail.com

Bert George is a professor of Public

Management in the Department of

Public Governance and Management

at Ghent University. Previously, he held

a tenured position in the Department

of Public Administration and Sociology

at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Bert’s

research focuses on strategy, behavior, and

performance in public organizations using

experimental, observational, and meta-

analytical research methods. He has won

awards from major public management

associations, including ASPA, IRPSM, EPGA,

AOM, and EURAM.

Email: bert.george@ugent.be; george@

essb.eur.nl

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 4, pp. 638–651. © 2020 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13327.